by Penny Dolan
When all was quiet upstairs, Shankbone and I went to see the damage. The huge wheel hung loose from the wall, and the plaster was a web of cracks. The hoist would never work again.
Shankbone peered about with big, baleful eyes, like a creature wary of his surroundings. ‘Bust and broken, Mouse, and us with it,’ he said, wringing his great raw hands.
From now on all the food would have to be carried upstairs, to the very place where Grindle and his gang lorded it over the others. Shankbone hidden in his gloomy lair could be feared, but up in the hall he’d be at the boys’ mercy.
He shook. ‘Mouse, I can’t do this. I can’t come up here.’
It was true. Shankbone, with his smashed voice, whose groans I hardly even noticed now, would be like an injured hound in a dogfight.
‘Then I’ll do it,’ I said. ‘I’ll come up here.’
I could bear it, I told myself, if I took it one meal at a time. That was how I would manage.
His face was wreathed with gratitude.
The first meal was not easy. I struggled among the tables, handing out dishes and bowls.
‘Who said you could come back up here, Vermin?’ Grindle yelled, his gang squeaking at me in mockery. ‘Your schooling’s stuck in the slop bucket now, mouse-brain.’
Grindle flicked a chewed crust at me, which started the others pushing and shoving at me as I staggered with trays between the rows.
If I retreated, as I longed to do, I’d be letting down both Shankbone and the small boys who sat with hunger in their eyes. Once I was their size, wasn’t I? I hadn’t forgotten that lonely emptiness.
‘Mouse?’ said Niddle, who sat there helping them. I paused, trying to reply, but too much had changed, and I turned away. Pinched and punched along each row, I set dishes down and went back for more, and more, and more. As the mouths filled, the name-calling ceased, though I was soured with anger. I did not know how long I could stand it.
The days became weeks, and weeks became months. Then one afternoon, as the sky darkened outside the kitchen window, I caught a reflection in the glass. At first, I did not recognise what I was seeing.
The boy was taller and older than I expected, and as skinny as two crossed broomsticks. The filthy sleeves on his worn-out shirt reached halfway down his arms, and his brown eyes, rimmed with dirt, peered out of a thin, pinched face. Two grubby ears stuck through fronds of tufty, matted hair.
Was this sad, greasy creature who I wanted to be?
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CHAPTER 21
SILENCE BREAKS
The old man had been ill over the winter, but as the trees covered themselves with green leaves, and the sun shone across the lawns, old Epsilon remembered a life other than his own.
He turned his face towards Scrope. ‘The boy?’ he asked, as if time had not gone by. ‘Where is he, Scrope? I need to see him. Bring him to me.’
‘Father?’ Scrope said, astonished.
‘Now, Scrope! I want to see Mouse,’ insisted the old man, tugging angrily at the blankets covering his bony knees. ‘Do you never listen? I want him here! You do such things for me, don’t you? You are always fussing, arranging my life and my lands, aren’t you? Get the child. It will be the worse for you if you don’t!’
Scrope bit his lip. The imp in his head mocked him as he thought of Murkstone Hall. ‘The boy is away at school, sir. Don’t you remember? If you wish, I will happily bring him back.’
With luck, the journey would give him time to get some kind of story straight.
‘Good.’ Epsilon sniffed. ‘Do it.’
Scrope, his mind in a turmoil, dipped his pen in the inkwell and scrawled a bitter message direct to Murkstone Hall.
‘Bulloughby, be grateful, your task is ended! The old man wants to see the child, so I will be sending Button instructions for arranging the boy’s return.’
Scrope blotted the letter.
So what did the boy look like now? Did he still have Albert’s ears? Did he have Adeline’s bright brown eyes? Even more worrying, what did the boy know about him, his kindly Uncle Scrope?
‘Mouse,’ he whispered. ‘Young Mouse.’ He had not spoken the child’s name for a long time. ‘What will I do with you?’
Folding the note firmly, he thrust it into an envelope. He would decide what to do when the wretched child was eventually brought home. Or should he decide now?
Scrope hesitated for a full day before he sent the envelope off on its journey, and that was one day too long.
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CHAPTER 22
THE LAST COURSE
I move. The rough sacks scratch my cheek. A family of cats, thin and hungry, slip down from the curve of my covers and away. They are not pets. They are angry and hungry, and they sleep against me for warmth. Do I mind? No, I do not, for the nights down here in the depths of the school are so, so cold. As the cats slink away, their eyes shine, for they are off to scavenge the corridors of Murkstone Hall.
But I am lying wide awake now, and it is because the dream came again tonight. Not that strange bright dream, which is happy, though I do not understand much about it. No, it was the bad dream. I understand the bad dream very well, because it is from the time when I was first brought to this place.
I hold up my hand, stretching it out against the pale grey square of light that is the scullery window. I see my hand, as it is this morning, grimed with cinders, stinking of onions and dishwater. Nobody can keep clean down here in the kitchen, not me, not Shankbone, not a single dish or kettle or spoon. Nobody cares, certainly not Bulloughby or Button.
The hand in the bad dream is almost clean, and it smells of hay and horses and the open air. It is a small child’s hand. It is my hand as it was when I was taken away from the sweet life of Ma’s farm. It is the hand I had when I trusted everyone.
All at once I long for that place so much. I long to see it again, and Ma and Isaac, no matter that somehow I have been deceived. I long for my life as it is now to be ended.
Overnight, as if there was a change in the wind, something shifted in my heart. The dream of the farm came too often to shake it away during the day. I no longer cared about surviving in Murkstone’s depths. I needed to be gone.
For so many years I had dreamed about creeping out of the school while others were sleeping, but the kindness of Niddle and Jarvey and even poor Shankbone had tugged me into staying. Now my dream haunted me night and day, and escape clanged every minute in my brain.
On a day that began like any other, I carried a tray into the dining hall. I put down the food, then returned with more. The small boys snatched for pieces of broken bread and grabbed at the half-filled bowls.
As I came to Grindle’s table he hissed, ‘Collecting crumbs from the rich man’s table, poor Mouse!’ and he urged his gang to pay me secret pinches and punches as I went up and down.
I returned with yet another awkward tray, and Grindle stuck his foot out to trip me up. I tried to right myself for a moment, struggled to regain my balance, and did.
Then, all at once, I had had enough.
I tossed the tray and the plates up in a spinning arc, high above the heads of Grindle and his gang, so that a glorious shower of greasy gravy and lumps of gristle poured down, splattering across the table, pouring into their laps.
In one triumphant glance I saw the faces from other tables grinning with shock and delight, all wishing ill on the astonished Grindle. Some started cheering and stamping, but I waited no longer.
The urgent clanging of the dinner bell brought Mr Bulloughby hurrying from his room, so that he stood, arms outstretched, to block my way. With the roar of Grindle’s gang growing at my back, I turned and raced off towards the stairs, legging it up all five flights to the bell tower.
The stone steps became narrow toeholds as I stumbled and scrambl
ed up the twisting stairway. It was so dark I could hardly see where I was going, but I cared for nothing. Once or twice I fell and skinned my knees and elbows, but I pushed upwards, higher and higher.
At last daylight rushed into the stone turret. The narrow door above me hung half off its hinges. It swung with each gust, sending dry leaves swirling in the stairwell. I leaped up the last steps, through that bright rectangle of light and out on to the roof.
I paused, almost unable to believe the wide sky that now burst around my head or the wind that gathered up my breath. The world beyond the parapet wall whirled around me and made me stagger, and for a moment the tops of the nearest trees quivered with each gust, inviting me to step out into the weightless air. No. No. That long final drop was not what I wanted. That was not an answer.
Bulloughby was scrabbling way down in the stairwell. ‘Get back here, boy!’ he shouted. Grindle’s curses came close behind, but excited calls and laughter rose up like a chorus of loud angels from within the building, bursting from every window.
‘Go on, Mouse! Faster! Faster!’
‘Get away. Please, please.’
‘Good luck, great adventures, Mouse!’
‘Remember us!’
‘Run, run, run!’
Run? Of course, but where and how? From high up on the cracked bell tower, I saw the woods that surrounded the school, and the rough road beyond the school gates, and the empty moors. There was no living person in sight, only the dull known horror of Murkstone Hall below my feet. I had wedged the warped door shut with a loose tile, but it would not hold Bulloughby nor Grindle back for long.
A stone griffin, almost my own height, guarded one corner of the tower, its beak and wings powdered away by the weather.
‘Vermin! Vermin!’ Bulloughby roared, almost at the door.
I put my hand against the carving and felt the monster sway, loose at the base, ripe and ready to crash to the ground below. Winding my arms around it tightly, I heaved, and the griffin fell backwards.
‘Thank you, Shankbone!’ The kitchen work had given strength to my arms.
The griffin rolled – with an extra shove from me – up against the door. A monster to hold a monster, if only for a while.
I paused, glad of a moment of safety. If you can climb the walls for Grindle, you can climb for yourself, Mouse, I thought.
‘Come back, come back!’ Bulloughby whined, thumping at the door as if it mattered to him whether I climbed or tumbled.
But I would not come back for Bulloughby. I would not go back to him or Grindle or Button. Jarvey must take care of Niddle, and my poor friend Shankbone would have to look after himself.
I lowered myself over the parapet until my toes touched a narrow ledge, praying that the weathered stones were more secure than my toppled griffin. One hand followed another, one foot after another dug in, and down I went.
Bit by bit, like a child clinging fast to its parent, I edged down the lichen-covered tower until my boots nudged the firm ridge of roof tiles. My shredded fingernails were bleeding, but the hard climb was over. I was not big, nor mighty, but I was still definitely Mouse, unafraid of any height.
I slid down the far side of the roof and gained the old wing of Murkstone Hall. I scrambled down the twisted ivy and ran across the empty yard. I shinned over the gate, plunging away through moor-grass, dropping down through hollows and dips among the furze and bracken. As I ran, almost sure now of my escape, a question came with each panting breath.
‘Where are you going to, Mouse? Where are you going?’ I asked myself.
And I knew the answer. I was running for my life. I was running home to Ma and Isaac and Roseberry Farm.
M
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CHAPTER 23
HOME
My journey back was long, and full of hail and rain and storm. My memories helped me in some places and led me astray at other times.
I hitched rides on carts. I stowed away on the top of slow, swaying coaches. I followed rivers busy with boats and barges. I walked and walked until my ankles were raw and my toenails blackened and fell off my feet. Some folk helped me; some didn’t.
I plodded through mud and sheltered under trees and slept in sheepfolds. I drank from small streams, snatched food from fields and gardens and stole from markets and passing cartloads. My education had taught me well, and my climbing and clambering got me over walls and away from watchmen and constables more than once. Somehow I survived, and I felt the air grow warmer with each day’s travelling.
I saw the chalk horse on its hillside, and that abbey with its square tower. I found some of the inns and market crosses and wells. I crossed old heathlands and ancient commons, though now they were stitched down with newly hedged fields and fine new-built houses and crossed by the cuttings and iron roads of railways.
I cannot tell you how far I walked, though it took day upon day. How far have you walked? Can you remember a time when your whole journey shrank down to one step and then another step?
It was a hard time, and a hard journey, even though Bulloughby and Grindle were far away. Hardest of all was the thought of my lost friends, of Niddle and Shankbone and Jarvey, left behind in that dreadful place.
Even so, I was excited because soon I would be with my own family once more.
At last I reached the once familiar crossroads and set off up the happy hill to Roseberry Farm. I was hurrying, for I was so close. I even forgot the pain of walking. I could not help stretching a smile wide across my face. I was coming home, after so long!
The dusty road sent up warm yellow clouds that powdered my broken boots. The old milestone leaned even further to one side, and thin saplings had become young trees.
I rested for a while in the shadow of an old elm, sucking at a long grass, partly to keep off hunger and partly to savour this sense of a joyous return. Larks were singing in the fields around, and even I could sing aloud again. I was about to walk into the dream I’d held tight for so long.
I set off again, walking, walking, and reached the very, very top. I went over the final ridge.
Roseberry Farm had been burned to the ground. There was nothing there – no animals, no Isaac, no Ma – nothing of my long-lost home but a blackened shell where the farm had once stood. All those years, while I had dreamed day and night about returning, the dream did not exist. Instead I saw a skeleton of low broken walls, crumbling stones and fireweed. Something rose up my throat, and I retched until I was sick.
I stumbled around the site, tracing what remained of the old buildings. I wandered through the tumbled walls of the cow byre and stepped over the remains of the stables. Small spiders had spun webs in the heat-cracked bricks, and nettles and tall weeds had taken over the deserted rooms. As I disturbed the bracken shoots, the scent of soot and burnt timber filled my nostrils.
My face was wet. What about Ma and everyone? Were they alive or dead? What could I do? Where should I go?
I was numb in head and heart. I searched as if searching could change what I saw. But everything stayed mercilessly the same. I turned around and around, hoping to find all was well behind me, but Roseberry Farm as I knew it had gone.
Twilight came. Evening came. Night came. I curled myself up in a ferny hollow and howled. Instead of lying under a soft cover, gazing up at Ma’s whitewashed ceiling, I watched an owl swoop overhead, its two huge eyes searching for a mouse.
Daybreak. I lay among the bracken, unable to move or do anything. I did not want to eat, to speak, even to exist. I had not planned any next stage to this journey. This was to have been my happy ending. Now there was nothing and nowhere else to go. I had never felt so alone. All my memories of Ma seemed to mock me.
My mind was blank. I was totally hollow. I did not even worry that someone might have been sent after me. I lay, watching insects climb blades of gras
s, and fall and climb again, the foolish crawling things. Morning. Noontime. Afternoon. Hours passed.
A second evening. The setting sun burst into flame across the horizon, turning the clouds into wreaths of crimson fire. I sniffed, as the faint scent of burnt wood grew stronger. I breathed in again, and it was not the dead, damp scent of old soot. Hot smoke tickled my throat. Someone had lit a campfire nearby.
Then a sad tune rose up in the air, haunting the desolation like a ghost. I struggled to unfold my aching limbs and stood up on my two battered feet. I stumbled towards that penny-whistle tune, the very song I’d heard long, long before.
Within the ruins of my farm sat the old wayfaring tramp. Sheltered by a broken wall, he watched his evening fire. As I staggered through the tangled weeds towards him, he gently laid down his pipe and gestured for me to sit beside him.
‘Who are you, boy? I seem to know your face.’ The breeze lifted the long wisps of grey hair from his forehead, and his sun-brown face was open. His eyes were calm as a summer sky.
‘Mouse,’ I stammered.
‘Ah! You came back then? Were you sent or did you run away, child?’ His eyes crinkled up at the corners.
‘I ran. Escaped. I want to see Ma.’ It was obvious to anyone that was what I would be doing.
‘Best to warm yourself before night comes, Mouse.’
‘But Ma? What about my Ma?’ I asked, starting to let the terror loose from my mind.
‘Your Ma? Ma Foster? A fine woman,’ the tramp said softly. ‘She was Ma to so many little fosterlings. Many a mother must bless her, though she had none of her own, poor woman.’
‘She did! She had me! I was her own special child!’ I shouted at the stupid man. ‘She was my Ma! Mine!’ I fixed my eyes on him angrily. ‘Don’t you remember me being here?’
He squinted at me again and smiled, amused. ‘Weren’t you the tiddly climbing one? Squirrel, or rat or something?’
